James Gunn to Direct a Groot/Rocket Spin-Off, Says Vin Diesel

Clear out your desk, Dave Bautista. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Zoe Saldana.

James Gunn doesn’t want any of you for his next movie. All he wants is the vocal talents of Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel.

Oh, and his brother in a green morph suit.

Yeah, their family’s weird.

Vin Diesel has spoken about potential plans for the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise after the next movie is released, and apparently, he’s been led to believe that James Gunn isn’t interested in doing a traditional Guardians Vol 3 – instead, the star has been led to believe that a Rocket/Groot spin-off movie is up for consideration.

This doesn’t sound entirely unbelievable, if only because Gunn remains very reluctant to confirm that he’ll be directing Guardians 3, if such a movie ever finds its way to audiences (spoiler alert: Marvel is going to make that movie eventually, with or without James Gunn).

It makes sense that if Gunn were to stick around, he might like to try flexing his muscles to do something different, and if that’s the case, why not a buddy comedy featuring a talking raccoon and a sentient tree?

Let’s face it – Gunn’s been building to that movie all his career.

According to Vin Diesel, though, the pair of intergalactic criminals won’t be the only CGI heroes to appear in such a film:

“I think if it’s up to James Gunn, you are going to see a Groot and Rocket movie after Infinity War. I think that’s highly possible. We shall see. I know that, somewhere in the universe, you are going to see Groot and Hulk battle. You can write it somewhere. You are going to see that poster: Hulk vs Groot.”

Diesel certainly seems pretty confident about this hypothetical movie, but who can blame him? The one thing Marvel likes more than throwing superheroes together in movies is making money, and it’d be difficult for a film that boasts a Hulk vs Groot fight to avoid making more cash at the box office than the collective GDP of most developing nations.

Again, though, the question that needs to be answered, is whether or not Gunn will want to stick around with Marvel long enough to make that movie.

Jon Favreau found his excitement for working with Marvel was stripped away after only two movies with the studio. Ditto Joss Whedon, who was left so emotionally exhausted by two back-to-back Avengers films that, a failed anti-Trump viral campaign aside, we still haven’t heard anything from him since.

The Russo Brothers are managing four movies somehow, but it helps that there are two of them. Like the Guardians of the Galaxy at the end of their first movie, the crushing weight of the Marvel power can be shared between multiple directors for longer than any single visionary could survive alone.

So will James Gunn be so eager to direct Hulk vs Groot that he willingly signs up for a third Marvel outing?

Or will the studio chew up his last remnants of artistic integrity and spit him out, a broken, empty man?